Many Mexicans make a pilgrimage on this day to the chapel on Tepayac Hill in Mexico City, where the mother of Jesus is said to have appeared before an Indian peasant named Juan Diego from December 9, 1531 through December 12, 1531.

Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Diners in "upscale casual" restaurants spend an average of 8 percent more ($5.55) when the menu does not use dollar signs, reports a Cornell study published in the International Journal of Hospitality Management.

"Changing the menu typography is like picking the low-hanging fruit," says doctoral student Sybil Yang, who co-authored the study with Sheryl E. Kimes, professor of operations management at the Cornell School of Hotel Administration, and Mauro Sessarego of the Culinaty Institute of America. "The yield may not be large, but it is easy to do, and there is very little downside to form a typographical strategy for the menu."

However, the researchers found no difference in spending when the prices were listed as numerals with dollar signs or were spelled out.

One possible reason why diners spend less when the word "dollars" or the dollar sign is used is that "references to dollars, in words or symbol, reminds people of the 'pain of paying,'" said Kimes.

The researchers based their conclusions on a study of 201 diners at a café at the Culinary Institute of America. Diners were randomly given one of the three menus, on which prices were written as numerals with the dollar sign; as numerals without the dollar sign; or spelled out. For example, the price was listed either as 20, $20 or twenty dollars.

Sunday, November 29, 2009

At the beginning of this month Bioware released its latest fantasy RPG for both PC and consoles, and ever since then it’s been raining roses, praises and applause...

The games outer layer – graphics and sounds – leaves no room for complaints: the environment is slick and polished, the characters and armors are highly detailed, and the soundtrack and sound effects are decent and nonintrusive....

But I wouldn’t go as far as to call it outstanding, impressive, state of the art, or a 5star game as many others did. No, it’s not a life changing experience. No, I wouldn’t lift babies towards the sun to thank the gods for it, I wouldn’t stand in line for it and no, I’m not dying to find out if they are working on a sequel to it. But if you are looking for decent entertainment, I can assure you that Dragon Age is a good investment of both your money our time.

Friday, November 27, 2009

In The Civil War Cookbook, historian William C. Davis compiled a record of the conflict’s cuisine, describing the menus of the camp commissaries and how selected dishes were prepared. Beef steaks were cooked over an open fire according to the following recipe:

In The Civil War Cookbook, historian William C. Davis compiled an authoritative record of the conflict’s cuisine, describing the menus of the camp commissaries and how selected dishes were prepared. Sweet potatoes were often prepared as sweet potato pudding for holiday fare.

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

"My Christmas was bean soup without bread. The boys are not seeing a good deal of fun," wrote Johnny Jackman in his diary 146 years ago.

A trooper in the 9th Kentucky of the Confederacy, Jackman's lean Christmas was shared by thousands of other young American men in 1863.

Food supplies for the armies of the Civil War were usually limited to the basics and deprivations were common. If they filled their journals with reviews of their meals it was because these events were often the highlight of an otherwise dismal day.

Civil War historian William C. Davis compiled an authoritative record of the conflict's cuisine, describing the menus of the camp commissaries and how selected dishes were prepared.

"The Civil War Cookbook" combines historic photographs and reportage with handsome studio portraits of meals and kitchen accoutrements. More than four dozen authentic Civil War era recipes are included, from Southern gumbo and rice bread to Yankee doughnuts.

The sweet potatoes Johnny Jackman referred to in his diary may have been prepared as sweet potato pudding for holiday fare. Here's the recipe Davis found:

Boil the potatoes for 30 minutes until soft and mash with the milk to a smooth consistency. Add the sugar, eggs, lemon juice, and cinnamon, and beat until smooth. Pour into a shallow, lightly buttered dish and bake in a moderate oven (375 degrees) for 30 minutes. Serves 4.

The old maxim that an army marches "on its stomach" was certainly appropriate for the Civil War, whose outcome may have been decided in the camp kitchens as much as on the battlefields. Union kitchens were almost always better supplied than their Confederate counterparts, and consequently their soldiers ate more heartily.

A Union solder's Christmas was often more festive, writes Davis, "with their mess tables or camp kettles groaning with turkeys, chickens, hams, and special issues of vegetables, supplemented by goodies sent from home and goods locally purchased from sutlers and farmers."

Beef steaks were cooked over an open fire according to the following recipe:

Beats the steaks with a mallet. Peel the onions and cut into thick circles. Heat thebutter or oil in a large frying pan, when hot place the steaks in the center of the pan and surround with onion slices. Sprinkle the steaks and onions with the pepper and herbs and fry quickly over a high heat to required doneness, turning halfway through. When the steaks are almost ready, sprinkle over some grated horseradish. Serve the steaks straight from the pan.

Serves 2.

Captain William Seymour of the Confederacy's famed "Louisiana Tigers" is quoted from his diary on Christmas Eve, 1864. It was a cold night at Raccoon Ford, Virginia, and Seymour had been warming his toes by the campstove.

"We had made up our mind to go egg-nogless to bed, when -- about 11 o'clock -- the welcome sound of horses hoofs on the crisp snow outside; out we rushed and there we found the tardy 'Mose' with his well-filled demijohn. The eggs were quickly beaten -- the sugar stirred in and then the whiskey added, and we had one of the most delicious nogs that ever mortal man quaffed."

Friday, November 20, 2009

The market for products marketed as eco-friendly, green, natural, organic, humane, or fair trade is thriving despite the recession, according to market research publisher Packaged Facts.

Based on data from Packaged Facts' surveys, one-fourth of U.S. adult shoppers frequently purchase certified organic food or beverage products and one-third are usually willing to pay more for organic foods.

“With the economy foremost in consumers’ minds, heightened price sensitivity in the midst of the current recession is inevitably having an effect on the market for ethical products,” says Don Montuori, publisher of Packaged Facts.

“However, our survey indicates that more shoppers understand the environmental, social, and economic implications of their choices. The result is a sizeable number of consumers who will purchase typically more expensive ethical products even in economically challenging times.”

The U.S. market for "ethical products" has annually grown in the high single- to low double-digits over the past five years. Packaged Facts forecasts the growth rate will persist despite the recession and the market will approach $62 billion in 2014, up from a projected $38 billion in 2009.

Standing in a field just a few hundred yards from the place where he was born 70 years earlier on "a cold February morning," the retiring rancher eyed the crowd gathered around his dismantled windmill.

An auctioneer cried out from the center of the throng, "Last chance! Two-twenty-five, give me two-twenty-five! Sold for two hundred dollars."

The auctioneer and the crowd moved on, away from the rancher and toward a rusty manure spreader. The man with the highest bid, a neighbor, lagged behind. He studied the metal fan blades of the windmill and then crossed over to the rancher. His round, flushed face was reflected in the older man's dark glasses.

"You're going to have to help me put this thing together," he said.

The rancher studied him a moment from behind the glasses, then announced in mock seriousness. "Nope, I can't help you. I told you not to buy the thing."

Auctions like this can be gloomy affairs. When a century-old ranch is sold and its equipment goes on the auction block, often there's a foreclosure or a death in the family. Neighbors stand around, hands in their pockets, and bid sheepishly. The owner may not even attend.

This southern Idaho rancher stood his ground, wryly watching three generations of tractors, trucks and farm implements pass into other hands. Friends and neighbors, farmers and ranchers with weathered faces and calloused hands, approached the lank old man in the tan felt hat. Like the land around them, their conversation was sparse, but not subdued.

"Does this baler work good?" the auctioneer called out as he started taking bids on a John Deere 216.

"Oh yeah," said the rancher with a slight grin. "You hook it on the tractor and it'll follow."

The 1,100-acre ranch had been sold to a developer from California. Soon after the auction, the old rancher would leave a land homesteaded by his grandfather in 1886, a place that he grew up on in the 1930s, and a family business he had owned for 40 years.

At various times during its history the ranch had supported a thousand head of dairy cows, nearly 500 head of beef cattle, crops of clover, seed, hay, alfalfa, wheat, barley and potatoes. Some years were tough, others prosperous; adequate water supplies were always a concern.

To keep the ranch operating, the owners purchased fleets of tractors and trucks over the years. Their outbuildings swelled with machinery and equipment. Long rows of those belongings spilled out across the field below the rancher's log home, and the ranch's final harvest continued.

A horse-drawn manure spreader sold that day for $235, a calf table for $140. A New Hiolland 1049 Super harrow bed stacker drew a top bid of $7,000.

In selling the family ranch, the old man kept title to 40 acres of unimproved land across the valley. What he'd do with it, he had no idea. But looking out across the broad plain that used to be his ranch, nestled tight against the southern flanks of the hills, it's not hard to understand why a man would want to retain some portion of that space, if only to have a place to stand and watch you way of life go down the road.

"I'm just getting too old," he explained. His three sons were not interested in -- or could not afford -- taking over the ranch. The rancher's wife had passed away 18 months earlier.

At various times during its history the ranch had supported a thousand head of dairy cows, nearly 500 head of beef cattle, crops of clover, seed, hay, alfalfa, wheat, barley and potatoes. Some years were tough, others prosperous; adequate water supplies were always a concern.

To keep the ranch operating, the owners purchased fleets of tractors and trucks over the years. Their outbuildings swelled with machinery and equipment. Long rows of those belongings spilled out across the field below the rancher's log home, and the ranch's final harvest continued.

A horse-drawn manure spreader sold that day for $235, a calf table for $140. A New Hiolland 1049 Super harrow bed stacker drew a top bid of $7,000.

In selling the family ranch, the old man kept title to 40 acres of unimproved land across the valley. What he'd do with it, he had no idea. But looking out across the broad plain that used to be his ranch, nestled tight against the southern flanks of the hills, it's not hard to understand why a man would want to retain some portion of that space, if only to have a place to stand and watch you way of life go down the road.

Thursday, November 19, 2009

In 1912, former Presdient Theodore Roosevelt campaigned for the presidency promising national health insurance along with women's suffrage, safe conditions for industrial workers, a federal minimum wage, and an old-age pension.

In many ways, the election of 1912 was a pivotal moment in American politics, inspiring fundamental changes still influencing society today.

Originally a candidate for the Republican Party in 1912, Roosevelt won a series of primaries that gave him a lead in party delegates going into the Republican Convention. But the incumbent president, William Howard Taft, controlled the convention floor and his backers excluded most of the Roosevelt delegates by not recognizing their credentials.

Enraged by these actions, Roosevelt consequently refused to allow himself to be nominated, allowing Taft to win on the first ballot.

Roosevelt and his supporters abandoned the G.O.P. two weeks later and formed the Progressive Party, under which he contended for the presidency against Taft, labor leader Eugene Debs of the Socialist Party ticket, and Democrat Woodrow Wilson.

The Progressives won 27.4% of the popular vote and 88 electoral votes from six states, an unprecedented achievement for a third party, but the presidency went to Wilson.

Although it took a new generation to accomplish them, most of the key elements of Roosevelt's social platform were achieved and became keystones in American society. National health insurance remains an exception.Out of the Past

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

The naturally produced molecule resveratrol, found in the skin of red grapes, has been shown to lower insulin levels in mice when injected directly into the brain, even when the animals ate a high-fat diet.

A new UT Southwestern Medical Center study suggests that when acting directly on certain proteins in the brain, resveratrol may offer some protection against diabetes. Prior research has shown that the compound exerts anti-diabetic actions when given orally to animals with type 2 diabetes (non-insulin dependent diabetes mellitus), but it has been unclear which tissues in the body mediated these effects.

"Our study shows that the brain plays an important role in mediating resveratrol's anti-diabetic actions, and it does so independent of changes in food intake and body weight," said Dr. Roberto Coppari, assistant professor of internal medicine at UT Southwestern.

"These animals were overrun with fat and many of their organs were inflamed. But when we delivered resveratrol in the brain, it alleviated inflammation in the brain."

Dr. Coppari said his study does not support the conclusion that consuming products made from red grapes, such as red wine, could alleviate diabetes.

"The main reason is that resveratrol does not cross the blood brain barrier efficiently. In order for the brain to accumulate the same dose of resveratrol delivered in our study, the amounts of red wine needed daily would surely cause deleterious effects, especially in the liver. Rather, our study suggests that resveratrol's analogs that selectively target the brain may help in the fight against diet-induced diabetes."

For the study, the researchers investigated what happens when resveratrol acts only in the brain. Specifically, they wanted to know whether resveratrol injected in the brain activated a group of proteins called sirtuins, which are found throughout the body and thought to underlie many of the beneficial effects of calorie restriction. Previous animal research has shown that when these proteins are activated by resveratrol, diabetes is improved. In addition, drugs activating sirtuins currently are being tested as anti-diabetic medications in human trials, Dr. Coppari said.

In one group of animals, researchers injected resveratrol directly into the brain; another group received a saline-based placebo. All the surgically treated animals consumed a high-fat diet before and after the surgery.

Dr. Coppari said the insulin levels of the animals treated with the placebo solution rose increasingly higher post-surgery. "That's a normal outcome because insulin sensitivity decreases the longer you keep an animal on a high-fat diet."

Insulin levels in the mice given resveratrol, however, actually started to drop and were halfway to normal by the end of the five-week study period, even though the animals remained on a high-fat diet.

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Welcome to Farmer's Market Online, the world's oldest and largest continuing online marketplace for producers selling their handmade, custom crafted, home grown and farm raised goods direct to consumers worldwide.

On Tuesday, November 10 there were 3,522 unique visitors at Farmer’s Market Online making 17,591 page hits.

Vendors in this market receive 100 percent of the purchase price for every item sold. There areno sales reports to file and no commissions to pay. Every transaction is strictly between the consumer and the vendor.

Shoppers communicate with and deal directly with the producer, giving them the opportunity toknow who is making or growing the goods and how they are being produced.

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Recognizing the growth of Scotland’s gaming industry, a digital media award in a Games category was presented at the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) Scotland Awards for the first time this year.

Held at the Glasgow Science Centre on the banks of the River Clyde, BAFTA Scotland's annual awards celebrating the moving image industries also included honors Interactive and Web media.

In the Games category, Dundee-based developer Proper Games won top honors for its downloadable sandbox puzzle game Flock! Other titles nominated for the award were Dynamo Games’ Championship Manager Express 2010 and Low Grav Racer by Cobra Mobile.

Mechanical automata Cybraphon won the Interactive category and blipfoto captured the best Web award.

The City of Orillia City Hall on Andrew Street in Orillia, Ontario, now hosts the Saturday morning Orillia Farmers' Market.

Moved from its location beside the Opera House in downtown Orillia, where it was held for 137 years, the Orillia Farmers' Market is being held in the city building until the re-development of the market block, behind the Orillia Opera House and Orillia Public Library, is complete in about two years.

Market vendors will be setting up both inside and outside the city hall.

Monday, November 9, 2009

As Newsweek's bureau chief in Germany, Michael Meyer was an eyewitness to the fall of the Berlin Wall. On the 20th anniversary of 1989, he pays tribute to the event in this memoir which documents the key players in the drama, from Czech president Vaclav Havel and the Hungarian despot Nicolae Ceasuşescu to Hungarian Prime Minister Miklós Németh and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.

"Nothing has ever been so freighted with symbolism, ideology, and history. The Wall was World War II, the Cold War, the Iron Curtain, the high tide of totalitarianism and communist dictatorship, the frontier of democracy. You could feel it, smell it, run your hands over it, look across it. On the one side, us. On the other, them."

For those born too late to recall its significance, this book tells the story of the rise and fall of a Cold War icon. For the rest of us, its another opportunity to shake our heads in amazement. It really is gone, isn't it?

Real cowboy hats don't have feather bands, nor do they come in mink fur or shades of mauve. The real thing, like the Stetsons and Resistols of old, is 100 percent fur felt. It's sturdy enough to weather gully-washers and to withstand horse's hooves, and it comes only in basic colors: good-guy white, bad-guy black and wrangler tan.

It used to be, a hundred or so years ago, you could tell where a cowpoke hailed from by the style of his hat. High Plains horsemen wore hats with wide brims to shade them from the glaring sun. Backcountry packers and riders in wooded areas favored hats that were narrower, to avoid tree limbs, and more bowed, to keep rain off their necks.

Nowadays mass production of cowboy hats has messed things up, but there are still some distinctions among real-life working cowboys. Your Texas cattleman, for instance, still wears a conservative rancher-style hat with a crease down the center of a six-inch crown and a dent along each side.

Most Nevada buckaroos, on the other hand, seek out the scruffiest, most old-fashioned hat imaginable and wear it with great pride.

And only bankers and other city dudes wear those black, short-brimmed bowlers.

The earliest cowboy hats were self-made fashion statements the likes of which won't be found in any store. Hat-makers started off by digging a hole in the ground the size of a man's head. Then a piece of wet rawhide was stretched over the hole and nailed down.

Into the middle of the wet skin the cowboy would stuff several handfuls of grass and shape the crown from the inside with his fingers. The brim was tamped down and cut to whatever width the maker desired.

Once the rawhide dried, it was smoked and heated over a campfire for waterproofing.

Such hats, which date back to the early 1800s, did not last long. Their brims wore like corrugated cardboard, according to historical accounts, and broke apart in chunks after a few months.

Not many cowboys make their own hats these days unless they are professional haber-dashers like Tom Hirt in Colorado. Hirt uses early-century techniques to custom-craft hats from a dense Beaver fut felt. He cuts and shapes the hat by hand, but instead of using a hole in the ground he forms the crown using antique wooden blocks, or "lasts," to get the head shape he wants.

Hirt then works the brim on a heat press to create the sloping dip of a Wyoming cowhand's hat or the "pencil-roll" lip of a riverboat gambler's. After sanding and oiling the fabric to a smooth finish, he ties a simple leather cord or a colored ribbon around the brim.

No feathers, no buckles, no flags on these hats. Real cowboys, their character molded by austere landscapes and a frugal lifestyle, disdain such adornments. The only concession to vanity may be found in gold lettering along the two-inch-wide leather sweatband inside the crown: the cowboy's name.

Friday, November 6, 2009

The new Saturday morning Milwaukee County Winter Farmers' Market debuts this weekend in the lobby of the Tommy Thompson Youth Center at State Fair Park (Gate 5 at 640 S. 84th St.) in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Some 20 local vendors will offer everything from farm-fresh eggs and apples to farmstead cheese and yogurt from 8 a.m. to noon every Saturday through April 24.

The new winter market follows a national trend of farmers markets extending their seasonal connections between food producers and consumers to meet a growing demand for year-round local food.

Thursday, November 5, 2009

All sales transactions at Farmer's Market Online are strictly between the vendor and the customer. We do not process or monitor sales activity.Most Booths offer several avenues for orders:

* PayPal direct payment links. We set these up for vendors who have PayPal accounts and want shoppers to be able to make purchases direct from the Booth. These transactions go directly to the vendors PayPal account and are not monitored or processed by Farmer's Market Online in any way. * Links to another website with an order form. * Phone number for telephone orders * Fax number for faxed orders * Postal Address for mail-orders * Email address

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

A. J. Jacobs is a journalistic stuntman in the tradition of George Plimpton and Hunter S. Thompson who chooses a topical or peculiar actvity and immerses himself in it for a set amount of time, then writes a book about the expeirence.

For his first book, The Know-It-All, Jacobs read through all 32 volumes (33,000 pages and 44 million words) of Encyclopedia Britannica alphabetically. Then, Jacobs committed to a year following the Talmudic laws of the Bible as literally as possible and wrote The Year of Living Biblically. In this one, he volunteers himself as "guinea pig" for nine separate lifestyle experiments: practicing Radical Honesty, avoiding all multitasking, outsourcing a month of his life to a couple of assistants in India, being his wife's devoted servant.

Other experiments include a month of living like George Washington, pretending to be a woman in the world of online dating, and an afternoon posing nude for a photographer.

Why should anyone care? Because Jacobs is a well-schooled auteur and the feigned earnestness of these quests makes for entertaining, if not enlightening, reading.

Most of the these pieces previously appeared in the pages of Esquire magazine, where he is an editor at large.

Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Mix milk and vanilla. Tie spices in cheesecloth bag and place in milk. Heat slowly.

Beat together eggs and 6 T sugar. Carmelize 1/3 C sugar over medium heat in pan. Remove spices from milk and slowly beat milk into eggs. Pour into pan. Place pan in container of water reaching to the edge of pan.

Monday, November 2, 2009

Hard frost again last night. My footsteps leave dark impressions on the ground. The breath of the cows rises in clouds as they huddle together like football players at Soldier Field on a December Sunday.

Fewer grasshoppers now, I notice. They used to scatter through the wheat stubble on my approach. Only a few stragglers remain. The rest have died or gone off to hide from winter.

The crisp night is giving way to a warm morning glow. It will be an "Indian Summer" sort of day, the kind we missed out on last year when winter dropped in early. Some of our coldest weather came in November rather than January, where it belongs.

Most of nature depends on a steady progression of seasons.

These cool nights encourage the growth of fat and fur on dogs, cats, horses and most other warm-blooded critters. My beard and waistline, too, seem to grow more readily this time of year. By winter solstice, or late December, we'll be well acclimated to the cold.

Reptiles, insects and other creatures make similar adjustments. Many bury themselves in the most protected spot they can find and slip into a deep torpor, like hibernation, which lasts throughout the winter.

Even no-see-ems -- those nearly invisible biting midges that infiltrate lawns and campsites, nibbling at whatever skin they latch onto -- have a nifty wintertime adaptation. Their bodies start producing a protein this time of year that acts as a sort of antifreeze.

Scientists don't know exactly how the no-see-em, or Culicoides variipennis sonorensis as they call it, accomplishes this winterization. They have discovered that if the insect is suddenly exposed to a temperature of 14 degrees for two hours it will die. But if the no-see-um is first exposed to 41 degrees for an hour, it can survive at 14 degrees for up to three days.

This wintertime acclimation, known as "cold hardening," is also found in the pesky fruit fly and the common house fly. It is one reason why a hard winter won't always kill off an insect population and the diseases it carries.

My own cold hardening begins with snow tires on the truck, weather-stripping around the windows and doors, and a couple cords of firewood split and stacked. There's still gloves and boots to buy, trees to prune, feed to stock up on, and garden beds to mulch. I don't have any antifreeze proteins in my system that I know of, but I've noticed that 30 degrees isn't as chilling as it was a couple weeks ago.

Some New Jersey farmers market vendors are contributing to "A Better World" by bartering produce in exchange for prepared meals at a new community cafe in Highland Park, according to a report in The Daily Targum at Rutgers University.

A partnership between Who Is My Neighbor? Inc. and Elijah’s Promise, A Better World Café aims to provide sustainable, healthy and affordable food options for those in and around the Highland Park community. The restaurant has a menu with set prices that patrons pay for meals, but cash is not the only option.

"Customers can volunteer an hour of time in exchange for a meal voucher, which can later be used in exchange for food, she said. Those who can neither pay nor volunteer may enjoy a complimentary meal option free of charge," The Daily Targum reported.

Zone 7, an organization that acts as a middleman between local farmers and restaurants, helped organize tbe farmers’ market vendors’ trades of produce for meals.

A Better World Café opened less than two weeks ago at the First Reformed Church of Highland Park. Food is prepared at Elijah’s Promise Culinary School on Livingston Avenue and delivered to the church. A grand opening will be held soon.

Welcome to Farmer's Market Online, the world's oldest and largest continuing online marketplace for producers selling their handmade, custom crafted, home grown and farm raised goods direct to consumers worldwide.

On the first day of November, a Sunday, there were 3,305 unique visitors at Farmer’s Market Online making 15, 917 page hits. A year ago, there were 2,010 unique visitors on the same day of the month.

Vendors in this market receive 100 percent of the purchase price for every item sold. There are no sales reports to file and no commissions to pay. Every transaction is strictly between the consumer and the vendor.

Shoppers communicate with and deal directly with the producer, giving them the opportunity to know who is making or growing the goods and how they are being producer.

Big Y grocers is conducting a Favorite Holiday Recipe Challenge in which entrants include Big Y labeled foods in their recipes and demonstrate how the recipes are prepared on video. Recipes with originality, ease of preparation and creativity incorporating Big Y Brand products have the best chance of winning.

One Grand Prize $1000 winner will be chosen and four First Prize $250 Winners.

Throughout the entry period, registered users may visit the Big Y website and vote for their favorite entries. The five entries with the highest vote counts will qualify for judging for the grand prize. All those who vote are entered for a chance to win a $50 Big Y gift card.

Sunday, September 27, 2009

A single dose of buckwheat honey before bedtime provided more relief from nighttime coughing than popular over-the-counter cough medicine in a study published in Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.

Dr. Ian M. Paul and colleagues at Penn State College of Medicine conducted a study involving 105 children age 2 to 18 with upper respiratory tract infections who were sick for seven days or less and experienced symptoms during the night. Thirty-five children were randomly assigned to receive an age-appropriate dose of honey, 33 to receive dextromethorphan and 37 to receive no treatment for one night within 30 minutes of bedtime. The children's parents were asked to complete a survey assessing their child's cough and sleep difficulty the night before their assigned treatment and then again the night after treatment.

Honey was found to yield the greatest improvement followed by dextromethorphan, while no treatment showed the least improvement in cough frequency, cough severity, cough bothersome to child, child's sleep and parent's sleep.

"In paired comparisons, honey was significantly superior to no treatment for cough frequency and the combined score, but dextromethorphan was not better than no treatment for any outcome," the authors reported. "Comparison of honey with dextromethorphan revealed no significant differences.

"While our findings and the absence of contemporary studies supporting the use of dextromethorphan continue to question its effectiveness for the treatment of cough associated with upper respiratory tract infections, we have now provided evidence supporting honey, which is generally regarded as safe for children older than 1 year, as an alternative," the authors conclude.

Sunday, September 20, 2009

There's a place down by the river where the bank is wide and sandy. It overlooks a low-lying rock dam over which the river spills. Behind that dam, the water is flat and calm -- perfect for skipping stones across.

My son stops here every time we come by on walks or bike rides. He scrambles down to the water's edge, scavenges for flat stones just the right size to fit between his palm and forefinger. This is where he learned to skip stones.

I started skipping stones as a toddler beside a reservoir in Montana. My family spent many weekends camped along its shore. As soon as I grew bored watching the folks fish, which didn't take long, I took to skipping stones -- well away from the anglers, of course. I threw for hours.

Mastery of the art didn't come easy, I am sure. My son struggled through many unsuccessful attempts to imitate my slicing sidearm motion. His stones always fell into the water with a thud, making a single splash, until one day -- quite without warning -- he sent one skimming across the river one, two, three and four skips. He's been skipping without coaching or instruction ever since.

Finding the right stone is the real trick to successful stone skipping. It needs to be heavy enough to carry well, but also small enough to fit comfortably in yourhand. It should be flat, with rounded edges, the kind that most often lie along the banks of rivers. Locating a good supply beside a lake, far from moving water, can be difficult.

You wedge the stone along its edges between your forefinger and thumb, lean over to the side, and fling the stone sidearm while letting go of the thumb first to encourage a fast spinning motion. The stone should fly from your hand horizontal to the water and barely skim across the surface as gravity gradually brings it down.

A French physicist, Lydéric Bocquet, reduced the skipping action of the spinning stone to a mathematical formula. His equations showed that the faster it is travelling, the more times it will bounce. To bounce at least once without sinking, the stone needs to be travelling at a minimum speed of about 1 kilometer per hour.

The spin is critical, because it keeps the stone fairly flat from one bounce to the next. It also has a gyroscopic effect, preventing the stone from tipping and falling sideways into the water.

To match the world record of 38 bounces -- set by Jerdone Coleman-McGhee on the Blanco River in Texas in 1992 -- Bocquet calculates that a stone 10 centimeters wide would have to be travelling at about 40 kilometers per hour and spinning at 14 revolutions a second.

My son and I are not throwing for any records, but we do keep count of the bounces and with each successive throw we try to match or better our day's best. Sometimes it's just the beauty of the motion that captivates, or the thrill of seeing the stone arc through space.

I've heard that the Inuits of Alaska skim rocks across icefields and that Bedouin tribesmen of Arabia do the same thing on sand. In Scotland, the World Stone Skimming Championship is held each September on the island of Easdale, famous for its slate deposits and the millions of flat water rounded pebbles on its beaches.

There must be something powerfully primal about an activity that compels young boys to forego video games and grown men to set aside their ambitions to engage in a sport without prey or pay. Our genetic memories keep bringing us back to these shores where we've played for millenia. The same stone, perhaps, that flew from the fist of a pre-Columbian child is pulled from up from the earth by this 21st century youngster, wedged between his fingers and flung back out into space, skimming one, two, three, four and five (!) times across the surface before sinking back down into the depths of time.

Sunday, September 6, 2009

Plants get sick. They develop soft rot and leaf spot and cankers of all sorts. They suffer ulcerous lesions, mildews, and various wilts and scabs.

Apple trees get fire blight, which blackens their leaves and twigs and is sometimes fatal. Potatoes are susceptible to late blight, as 19th century Ireland learned too well, and grapes are vulnerable to powdery mildew, which nearly wrecked the French wine industry.

In the U.S. alone, there are more than 25,000 known plant diseases causing crop losses of several billion dollars annually.

Figuring out how plants defend themselves against disease and bolstering those defenses has been a priority for agricultural researchers.

Much study has been done on the activation of the "defense genes" which encode the proteins of plant cells with protective functions. Using gene splicing techniques, scientists have learned how to activate the cell's defenses before a pathogen attacks, an important breakthrough in crop protection.

Yet, while scientists have looked closely at the cells of plants and figured out how they protect against disease, until lately they passed over one peculair aspect of resistance: cell suicide.

When a disease appears on a plant the cells at the front lines often collapse and die. This has been called a "hypersensitive response" because it happens before the cells have actually been attacked.

At the Salk Institute for Biological Studies scientists closely observing the hypersenitive response noticed a buildup of hydrogen peroxide inside the cells.

The scientists watched as the hydrogen peroxide caused a cross-linking of structural polymers in the cell wall, making it tougher and harder to penetrate, much like a self-sealing tire. The chemical also triggered the pre-programmed death of the suicide cells, if you will, and alerted other nearby cells to the presence of an invader.

By checking the advance of the disease and alerting other defense cells, suicide cells give the plant a chance to produce antibiotics and raise other defenses. Their sacrifice, in some cases, makes a life-or-death difference to the plant.

Knowing how the hypersensitive response works will lead to techniques for stimulating it artificially. Plants will soon be genetically engineered to produce hydrogen peroxide in their suicide cells more readily after a pathogen attack.

How this will effect crop protection efforts and food supplies remains to be seen. But unlike attempts to control disease by attacking pathogens, this approach delivers its prescription directly to the plant: Get well soon.

Thursday, September 3, 2009

Corn germ meal left over after oil is extracted from corn in biorefineries making corn-ethanol may have a value-added use as a protein extender for plywood glues.

Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientist chemist Milagros Hojilla-Evangelista has devised a corn-germ formulation for use in sprayline coating, a procedure that applies a liquid adhesive to wood surfaces using overhead nozzles.

In tests, she applied the corn-germ-based glue to one side of 12-inch by 12-inch southern pine veneers, then hot-pressed them following industry-standard conditions to produce three-ply panels. Her analysis of the material found the bonding strength of the corn-germ-based glue to be similar to that of the wheat-flour-based formula used as extender for most plywood glues.

Currently, most corn germ is fed to poultry and other livestock animals. But if America’s biorefineries increase corn-ethanol production from the current 9 billion gallons to 15 billion gallons by 2015, as planned, a surplus of corn germ could be looming on the horizon.